SHOUT - Adopted by Lin Manuel Miranda

NO MAN'S LAND

The South Bronx is closer to Washington Heights than I realized, a fifteen minute subway ride and three-block walk from the station. For this month's meeting, Jeremy requested that Lin come along. Sebastian is coming down with a cold, so Vanessa took off work to stay home with him while Lin tagged along to my monthly interrogation. There's hardly a thought in my head on the subway there with Lin beside me. Not Jeremy, not the analyzation of each grueling second of the train ride. Just the crackling intercom announcing stops between intervals, the rumble of the tracks as the train barrels through the tunnel.

Fort Apache looks the same as it did last month. The sharp scent of smoke, the drug paraphernalia, the gang violence— it's all here. When we pass Ricardo's deli, I look down at the sidewalk and pretend not to see the building. When we pass Jamal's basketball court, it's empty, save some school kids racing from one foul line to the other on scooters. My family didn't live in this area of the South Bronx. We were farther East than Hope House, closer to Melrose than Hunts Point. We lived in a small brownstone adjoined to a row of buildings identical to ours. There was no backyard, only a front lawn with more dirt than grass. With no place for Nayim and I to play basketball and no place for Radhika to watch, the three of us walked two blocks to a park not unlike the one across from Hope House. Nayim and I played countless games of H-O-R-S-E while Radhika watched from the bench and listened to music on her MP3 player. I thought I was going to be six years old forever. I thought Nayim and I were going to play basketball for all of eternity and that Radhika's fake-fur edged coat would never go out of style. I thought the three of us would always be together, that My Mother would always mix mehndi in wooden bowls and My Father would always write books about things I was too young to understand. I never guessed I'd need some foster dad's winter coat to bring that feeling back to me.

Hope House is on my side of the sidewalk behind a tall chain-link fence and a small yard of dirt and concrete. I don't have to look up to know we've arrived. I feel the emptiness before I see it.

Jeremy meets us in the basement with his notepad and a thermos of steaming coffee. He shakes Lin's hand and turns to his computer when we sit.

"Vidya, you're doing well?"

He says it like I'm obligated to agree. I shrug. "Guess so."

"Are you telling the truth?"

"Do I have a choice?"

Jeremy sets two Styrofoam cups on the desk in front of us, then pours coke in mine and coffee in Lin's. Once he sits, he asks the ritualistic questions, and I give the ritualistic answers. After I reassure him that yes, The Mirandas feed me, and no, they don't beat me, he asks Lin a series of questions about whether or not I'm on drugs. I hear the high pitched chatter through the ceiling. The basement offices are below the cafeteria, where there's always some brawl unfolding or something flammable being lit with a match. I almost miss the feeling of living somewhere I knew I'd be forced to leave. Somehow I feel more restricted knowing no one is choosing Operation Pakistan for me. 

After Jeremy finishes asking Lin about whether or not I'm on crack, he stands and rifles through the file cabinet next to his desk. "Oh, Vidya! How was your birthday?"

Lin furrows his eyebrows and leans forward. "Birthday?"

I slouch in the chair. "Good—?"

Lin turns to me. "It's your birthday?"

"It was, on the twenty-fourth. Wait, Vidya—" Jeremy closes the file cabinet and squints at me. "He didn't know?"

If I wanted to open my mouth about my birthday, I would've. If I wanted to tell Lin about the candies or Radhika's saris or Nayim's jokes, I would have done it a long time ago. I slouch lower in the chair.